MP Robert Flello's choice of planet-friendly livestock farming as the subject of his private member's bill must have come as something of a surprise to his constituents.

The Labour man represents Stoke-on-Trent South, not known for its high population of farmers. Yet his bill – if it makes it to the statute book – will chiefly benefit farmers both in South America and in the UK.

Flello, whose name came out second in the parliamentary private members draw, has taken up a Friends of the Earth campaign to reduce the volume of soya meal imported to the UK as animal feed. It's certainly a worthwhile cause. In a new report, Pastures New, Friends of the Earth highlights the damage caused to wildlife and the rainforest in Brazil and Argentina by the growing of soya for western livestock farmers.

The UK currently imports around a million tonnes of the soya meal each year for livestock feed. New research commissioned by the environmental group shows that at least half these imports could be easily replaced with home-grown protein crops such as peas, beans and sunflower and by better use of clover-rich pasture.

The research – carried out at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester – was presented at a Commons meeting in support of the Bill. What the people of Stoke-on-Trent would have made of detailed cost comparisons between different feedstuffs in the diets of pigs and cattle is hard to say. But their MP seemed to follow all this Farmers Weekly stuff without problem.

Flello's aim is to get broad support from both farmers and environmental groups for the measure that will mark a major step towards a sustainable agriculture in Britain. It will mean that money spent under the EU's common agricultural policy is used to reward greener farming practices. And it's built around the principle of better returns for UK farmers.

In South America, where the relentless growth of soya cropping is destroying rainforest and traditional farming systems, it will enable farmers to return to tried-and-tested farming systems.

And while the issues may seem complex, there will be benefits for consumers, too. A shift to pasture-based farming in Britain will provide healthier meat and dairy foods than the present soya-based systems. And we'll enjoy greater food security. With more home-grown feeds in the ration, our foods will be less subject to violent price swings that are an everyday feature of global commodity markets.

Flello has shown real astuteness in selecting this particular campaign when he must have been offered dozens more issues with more obvious relevance to the people of Stoke.

He said rather disarmingly at the Commons meeting that he simply wanted to change the world. On the way he has handled this complex issue thus far, few of us would bet against him doing it.